The day before yesterday, April 6th, the Matsumoto City Office officially announced that the cherry blossoms have started blooming. The national “Cherry Blossom Forecast”, a service provided by the Japanese Meteorological Agency, estimated that the trees would start blooming on April 3rd in Matsumoto. That’s a 3-day difference.
April is the time when most Japanese are crazy about cherry blossoms (sakura) and can often be found enjoying themselves at parties under cherry trees (hanami).

A snapshot from our live camera

This year, we added a “Cherry Blossom Live Camera” page. We installed a high-resolution live camera at the north road of Matsumoto Castle – giving internet surfers a good view of the cherry blossoms. The Castle park will be lit up, so you can enjoy sakura images even at night (April 7-16 from 6pm-10pm).
You can also see thumbnails of previous photos (from around 9am each day) so you can experience the sakura blossoms from beginning to end.
Enjoy the sakura and the view of the Japan Alps with our live cam!